Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Murray Gell-Man is Dead

And, by dead, I mean the man - a brilliant and distinguished physicist.

His name has become attached to something quite separate from his body of work - the Murray Gell-Man Amnesia Effect. It was described by Michael Crichton, the writer and doctor, to explain why the media peddle so much nonsense, and, yet, retain their reputations.

Pdf of the original essay here.

A lot of very bright people get caught up in that trap, and its cousin, that of believing that, since they are so very accomplished in one field, they are a true genius in others, as well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

National media, and I include a substantial part of Fox in that, is just the Daily Propaganda Broadcast, filled with errors - including errors of omission - incomplete information, some outright lies; "local news" is social media crap - Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, et al, usually broadcast over television.

Watching, or even reading, what is called "news" will make you dumber than not having watched or read it, and it's time out of your life you'll never get back. GO DO SOMETHING INSTEAD: Read a story to your kids, play with the dog, share a glass of whatever with your spouse, talk to neighbors over the back fence. Have a life and run it like you own it. Because you do. It's too important to waste.

(Side note: If you don't know how to grow things, make and repair things, cook different stuff or shoot, yesterday was the best time to learn, but Today is still second best; tomorrow isn't.)